=169. Great Commander of the Union Armies.= President Lincoln saw that General Grant was a great soldier. He sent for him to come to Washington and made him lieutenant-general in command of all the armies of the United States. [Sidenote: =The "Wilderness"=] Grant took command at once. His first great object was to capture Lee's army. The shortest way to Lee's army lay through the "Wilderness," a part of the country lying south of the upper part of the Rapidan, in Virginia, and covered with a thick forest of tangled underbrush. The route was dangerous. But into the "Wilderness" Grant plunged with his great army. General Lee was there with his troops. The fighting began. For a month it was almost constant charging, back and forth, and there were long lists of dead and wounded. Grant moved his army southward and nearer Richmond. Lee met him in the bloody battles of Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. [Sidenote: =Petersburg taken=] Then Grant crossed the James River, south of Richmond, and began the attack on Petersburg. This place was taken in the spring of 1865. [Sidenote: =Richmond given up=] General Lee told the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, that he could hold Richmond no longer. He tried to get his army away, but the men were weak from hard fighting, and Sheridan, with his cavalry, was too quick for him. [Sidenote: =Lee surrenders at Appomattox=] General Grant wrote to General Lee suggesting that he surrender, and thus prevent the loss of more lives. Lee agreed, and the papers were signed April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. No more generous terms were ever given than those granted to Lee and his men. After the war was over General Grant served for a time in the cabinet of President Johnson, who had become president at Lincoln's death. [Sidenote: =Grant elected president=] =170. President of the United States.= In 1868 Grant was elected President of the United States. He was elected again in 1872. Late in life he made a tour of the world, and everywhere was received with great honor. [Illustration: THE GRANT MONUMENT, RIVERSIDE PARK, NEW YORK] [Sidenote: =Dies in 1885=] He died July 23, 1885, at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York. His body rests in Riverside Park, New York City, where a magnificent monument has been built to his memory. ROBERT EDWARD LEE, THE MAN WHO LED THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES [Sidenote: =Robert E. Lee, 1807=] =171. The Great General of the Confederacy.= Robert E. Lee was born in Virginia in 1807. He went to school at Alexandria, where George Washington once lived, and became a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. [Sidenote: =Wins fame in Mexico=] [Sidenote: =In charge at West Point=]